


Antidote - Switch

by salineshots



Series: Antidote Stuff [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, another goddang shower scene, had to torture lance im sorry, hey yall here's an au of my own fic how did that happen, lance gets bit in this one, lance pretends to be fine, like jesus christ so much pining, love bug, protective keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-06-06 15:50:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15198128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salineshots/pseuds/salineshots
Summary: My friendgreenteafiendhad a great idea! She said it would be cool to see what would happen if Lance were bitten instead of Keith. I got excited to write it. But this is all thanks to her, and she writes awesome stuff!Antidote is still the main fic, but this is a fun project I want to do on the side. It's not going to be a full-fledged story in and of itself, but more like alternate scenes of key things from Antidote, but where the context is flipped. So definitely don't read this without reading Antidote first. It won't make a lot of sense otherwise.So yeah.This is not a standalone fic.Just fun alternate scenes!





	1. Contact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenteafiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend/gifts).



As soon as the battle was done, Keith darted for Lance. The idiot had distracted the serpentine creature and taken a hit for him, and that self-sacrificing behavior from his teammate enraged Keith more than anything else. It wasn’t Lance's job to get hurt for him. But Lance seemed convinced otherwise, and he had taken a vicious strike against his whole chest for it and been thrown back several yards into the broad trunk of a tree. Keith would be amazed if he didn’t have a broken rib. Whether Lance said he was okay or not, Keith was going to shove him into a healing pod as soon as they left Halkeryn.

At first, Lance looked relieved, happy that they had won, but that look turned to apprehension when Keith grabbed his shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” Keith’s own voice sounded loud to him, and it felt rough in his throat. “Where’s your helmet?”

“It, um.” Lance darted his eyes away from Keith. “Fell off. I’m okay,” he added quietly.

Keith growled and looked to where Lance had fallen earlier. The grass was tall, but he could see the white and blue edges of his helmet peeking out. Hunk was already picking it up.

“Look,” Keith sighed, turning back to Lance. “Whatever that was, don’t do it again. You don’t need to--” He shut his mouth.

There was a bug on Lance’s neck. It was so red that, at first, he thought it was an open wound.

Coran had warned them about a wasp whose venom would turn a victim’s blood to acid. There was a beetle that was always full of microscopic parasites. A tiny mosquito-like creature carried a sickness that would eat a person’s brain away until they were a twitching husk. The one rule for this mission was _don’t take off your helmet_.

His hand darted forward and slapped at the bug, but Lance had already yelped in surprise and frozen.

Keith brushed off the dead bug, grabbed Lance’s jaw, and looked at the sting. All that was left was a small bead of blood.

“Did something just…?” Lance whispered, shaking.

“We’re getting you home,” Keith interrupted him. As soon as Hunk reached them, Keith grabbed Lance’s helmet and shoved it on over his head.

“Wait, what happened?” Hunk’s eyes widened, and he seemed a foot taller whenever he was worried about Lance.

“Something stung him.” Keith couldn’t sugarcoat it. That would just waste time when they had to fix it. “We’re getting back to the castle _now_. Call your lions.”

Pidge scrambled down from the base of the beacon, and while she called Green, Lance stared somewhere over Keith’s collarbone. He was starting to tremble worse, and Keith found that he had to support him with his hands on his shoulders.

“Lance?” he prompted him. “Can you call Red back, buddy? Or do you want us all to fly back in Green?”

“She’s coming,” Lance answered softly, and then found Keith’s eyes. “Am I gonna die?”

“You’re not gonna die,” Keith snapped.

“Is he gonna die?” Hunk was starting to breathe too fast.

“No,” Keith said, louder. “He’s going to be just fine. Here, can you take him?” He guided Lance closer to Hunk, and while Hunk started to hold him, his face was too grey. He looked almost as dizzy as Lance. Left alone, the two of them would tip over. “Never mind. I got him.”

He heard Red just before he saw her. Almost as soon as he looked up, she was landing on top of the trees and pushing them out of the way to get to her paladin, halfway in the clearing and halfway crushing the jungle behind her. The thunder of splintering wood made Keith flinch and shield Lance with his shoulder, but he didn’t wait to look at the damage done to the landscape. As soon as Red dropped the ramp for them, he was leading Lance up.

“We’ll see you back home,” Pidge called just as Green dropped down close by, more gracefully than Red had. Allura followed her, and Hunk came with Keith and Lance.

“Can you fly?” Keith asked. Lance’s feet were unsteady, and he looked like he might throw up. His eyes were still glassy with shock, and he didn’t seem to notice that his arm was slung around Keith’s shoulders for support while he dragged him into the cockpit.

“I think so,” Lance whispered.

“Okay. Good.” Keith was trying to be encouraging, but he couldn’t tell if it was reaching Lance at all. He helped him to the pilot’s seat and patted his shoulder. “You can do it, buddy. Get us home.”

Keith hadn't been inside Red since he had become the Black Paladin, and he noted with some surprise that she hadn't completely forgotten him. She acknowledged him in an extremely reserved, somewhat irritated way, but the remnants of their connection were still there.

At the moment, she was furious that anything had happened to Lance.

Lance was her new paladin. Even after all of Keith's experience with her, the stress and the personal growth and even their wordless banter - she had such an attitude and Keith loved it - Lance was her baby now, and Keith's place wasn't this close to the pilot's seat. While Hunk was standing with his hands on the back of the seat for support, Keith stepped back, leaning against the wall to give the new Red Paladin some distance.

Lance's hands gripped the controls. Keith saw him bow his head and heard him whine under his breath.

"Come on, girl," Lance groaned. "Please, baby."

Even Keith could feel Red's concern spiking. There was something like muted panic, the way a limb protests when it loses circulation and falls asleep.

"What?" Hunk leaned closer to Lance, hoping to read the controls. "What's going on?"

"She thinks I'm sick," Lance said through gritted teeth. "She's upset, but I can't think, and oh--" Keith wasn't at an angle to see Lance's face, but he could read the expression in his tense, hunched shoulders. Lance's head dropped further forward, and his fingers tightened over the handles by his seat, knuckles pale.

"Lance?" Hunk took a quick step to the side of the pilot's seat. "What's wrong?"

"It hurts."

Lance's voice was strained and broken. Keith had heard that voice cry in surprise or fear, yelp at a sudden sting or bruised shin, groan with dramatic exhaustion after a mission. Even when Lance had been truly injured, like during the fight with Sendak, he had managed to sound grim while keeping most of the pain out of his tone.

That wasn't working this time. Lance sounded miserable. Keith could practically taste it.

"Where does it hurt?" Hunk asked at the same time Keith asked, "What do you need?"

"Everywhere," Lance whispered. He was starting to shake again, and he was still trying to keep his voice down. "And I don't know. A bucket. I'm gonna throw up. It hurts." Helpless and upset, Hunk put a hand on Lance's back and rubbed.

"Okay." Keith stepped toward the seat. "Hunk, you get him. I'm driving." If this was what it took to get them home, there wasn't any point in wasting time. He could only hope that Red would temporarily accept him back.

Lance looked up when Keith made that order, and his eyes were already overflowing. "Keith," he mumbled, but he didn't fight it when Hunk helped him up out of the chair.

"It's okay, man," Hunk reassured him, and Lance leaned heavily into his chest. Hunk patted his shoulder, and he held Lance steady while Keith took his place in the chair.

Red's controls were wonderfully familiar, and despite that, Keith realized that this seat didn't feel like his spot anymore. The simple fact that Lance was the Red Paladin, that he had earned this lion in place of Keith, hung over his head like a sour note. And yet that fact made him proud. Keith sighed and curled his hands around her controls.

"Hang on, Lance. I'm gonna get you home."

He didn't even have to wait a second. Red flared to life, and her consciousness draped around Keith like a well-worn jacket. He tried not to feel too relieved that he still had a place as her pilot. Still, there was a decent piece of her that was still swirling around Lance, enraged that he was hurting to begin with.

"Hey, you need to sit down?" Hunk was asking Lance somewhere several feet behind Keith. Lance answered with a sickly groan.

"No, maybe, oh my god, it hurts, I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"Lance, would you shut up?" Keith barked, and he pulled back on the controls to tilt Red upward for a vertical takeoff. As soon as she was off the ground, Hunk braced himself against the side panels of the cockpit, and he held Lance up on his feet with him. "You're not dying. It's a shitty little bee sting. We're gonna get you to Coran, and he'll tell us to stick you in a healing pod for a few hours, and you'll be fine."

Red didn't seem to think Keith was handling this right.

Don't yell at him.

Red's dual loyalties between the two paladins flickered and shifted, and Keith growled when she took Lance's side. He was barely piloting her anymore, but they were still on their way back to the castle in Halkeryn's orbit.

"Keith." Lance's complaint lacked the usual melodrama, and that was what scared Keith the most. There was too much real fear, too much urgency, too much pain. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm scared, it hurts so fucking bad, I feel like-- Oh god--"

Lance's voice cut off in a sob. Hunk was immediately trying to reassure him and keep him upright. Keith took his eyes off the black sky ahead of him as they broke through the atmosphere, and he turned to look over his shoulder. With the way Lance was crying, Keith was scared that he was bleeding. His face was pale with agony, and he was curling tight around his stomach with his arms folded, but he didn't look injured anywhere but the tiny spot on his neck. Red, however, was livid.

Bring him back, let me hold him, let you hold him, bring him here.

"For the love of—" Keith hissed. He reached one arm back toward Lance. "Bring him back here. Red wants him."

Cautiously, Hunk supported Lance and brought him closer to Keith. Lance looked at Keith's outstretched hand, and his eyes widened.

"Just come here," Keith urged him. "I have to keep flying. Just get in the chair with me."

Lance took his hand. Hunk helped him forward, and Keith moved to accommodate Lance on his lap. Lance sat across his thighs, and he seemed to hold his breath, like he was trying to weigh as little as possible. Through that, Keith felt Lance trembling with pain, and he practically felt Red _buzzing_ with attention towards her rightful paladin.

"Relax," Keith told him. "I got you. What's Red telling you?"

Lance took in a shaky breath and let it out deeply. "Nothing."

That pissed Red off. She yelled at Keith next.

Helmets off, gloves off, just skin, hold him, he's still hurting.

Keith let go of the controls without question. He pulled his helmet off and dropped it on the floor, and then his gloves. Lance squeaked in protest.

"You, too," Keith insisted. "She says this'll help, right?"

"Well..." Lance swallowed, and he stared at Keith's bare hands like he wasn't used to seeing them without gloves on. Like he had never seen Keith's knuckles before. "Yeah, but you don't have to--"

"Lance," Keith snapped just as Red did. "If it helps, do it."

The tears in Lance's eyes made them look too blue, and Keith couldn't be sure if he was panicking or still in agony. The problem was that Lance was hesitating. So as impatient as it made Keith to feel helpless, he tried to be gentle. He reached up, held the underside of Lance's helmet, and lifted it off of his head. Lance stared at him with those bright, anxious eyes when Keith set the helmet in his lap.

Red was happy about that, and she urged him further. She fed Keith an image of his hand on Lance's face, or even their fingers laced together, and an impulse to follow through on the idea.

Keith flinched preemptively. If Lance was this reluctant already, there was no way he would feel comfortable with Keith touching him. Keith didn't know how to touch him, anyway. He would do it wrong. His hand would shake or leave the wrong kind of pressure on Lance's skin. But that had to be better than Lance hurting so badly that it scared him.

It didn’t make any sense why Red wanted him to touch Lance, or why that was supposed to make him feel better. Maybe Keith could drain some of the pain away for himself?

"Can I?" he asked, holding his hand in the air close to Lance's cheek, feeling so awkward that it hurt his stomach.

Lance's eyes darted to Keith's palm, and then down to the helmet. An unpleasant tremor worked from his shoulders to his ankles, and his fingers dug into his knees. "Sure."

So Keith cupped Lance's cheek in his palm.

Lance jolted at first. And then he leaned his cheek into Keith's fingers. His eyes shut tightly. He let out the smallest, "Oh."

He all but melted in Keith's lap.

It wasn't how Keith had imagined that to go.

"Did the pain stop?" Keith had to clarify.

Lance uttered a shaky, "Mm-hm." He nodded loosely, and when Keith's hand started to draw back, Lance started to lean and follow it.

Red didn't want him to stop. By the looks of it, neither did Lance. So Keith brought up his other hand to hold the other side of Lance's face. The sound Lance let out was alarmingly close to a moan.

"So... This is it?" Keith glanced back at Hunk. "Red's saying I just have to touch him?"

Hunk was holding one hand over his mouth. As the worry drained out of his eyes, he was just amused.

"I'm in the wrong lion right now," Hunk decided.

"Hunk," Lance complained loudly. He sat up straighter in Keith's lap, but he never pulled away from Keith's hands. "Don't be a jerk. Your best friend is suffering."

“I mean, doesn’t look like it anymore,” Hunk teased.

Hunk was right. Defensive and nervous as he was, Lance seemed _happy_. His cheek felt warm and soft under Keith’s palm, which he knew was too rough and calloused. He was happy to pilot one-handed, though, as long as he could stave off Lance’s symptoms with this weird cure. Red approved with a deep purr.

Now you know. This is how to help. It’s okay now. Make it okay.

She offered the image of the cockpit as a safe zone. She was a balm. Red could soothe Lance and keep him safe. Outside of that, though, she impressed a resounding sense of responsibility on Keith.

It seemed like she was telling Lance something similar, because the boy crooned and went slack against Keith’s shoulder.

“I love you, Red,” Lance mumbled.

That was fine. Not distracting at all, even when Keith felt Lance’s breath on his throat. Totally fine. His thigh twitched with nervous energy, and that seemed to wake Lance up from his relaxed stupor. Lance started to draw back, and this time, he didn’t flinch.

“I think it’s okay now.” Lance cleared his throat, and Keith stared back at him until Lance looked down at their position. Stiff and anxious, he pulled himself off of Keith’s lap to stand by the pilot’s seat instead. “I have no idea what that was,” he laughed. The sound of it was tight, but it was just like him to try and break the tension. “But thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Keith muttered. Lance may have taken that too literally, because he didn’t say another word until Red was docked in the hangar and the three of them were filing out.

As soon as they stepped out of Red, Lance’s face twisted, and his breathing tightened. Keith saw his hand curl into a fist, nails digging into his palm, but he didn’t say anything or even glance towards him.

Keith reached out and touched his hand without holding onto it. Lance’s face relaxed, and his breath left him in a rush. His fingers unclenched. When Keith slipped their hands together in a lock, Lance didn’t pull away.

“We need to get you to the clinic,” Keith insisted, grabbing Lance’s full attention. “We don’t know what other effects it may have on you.”

Lance mustered up a smile, but it looked paper-thin and scared.

“That’s not a bad idea,” he admitted.

 

Hunk followed them to the castle infirmary, and when they arrived, Coran was already there and arranging a large machine next to a cold white chair. The moment he looked up and saw Keith and Lance’s clasped hands, his eyebrows shot up.

“Oh dear,” Coran muttered, almost too quiet to hear. He cleared his throat and quickly spoke up. “Allura’s already contacted me. She said Lance was stung by something?”

“A bug,” Keith confirmed. “Small, red, shiny. Lance was in a lot of pain earlier.” He looked to Lance to let him elaborate, and for once, Lance was too bashful to speak. He looked down at the floor, and Keith felt a tug of pity for him when he saw the embarrassed flush of pink across his cheeks.

“Um,” Lance gathered up, still avoiding eye contact. “Keith makes it better. I dunno if it’s ‘cause we’re both connected to Red or something.”

Coran stared at the two of them, eyes moving back and forth. The silence dragged on long enough that the clinic doors opened again, welcoming four more sets of footsteps. Nobody spoke, probably too perplexed by the sight of Lance holding hands with his one-sided ‘rival.’

“Oh dear,” Allura whispered behind them, and Keith jerked his head around to frown at her over his shoulder in confusion.

“What? Do you two know what it is?”

Instead of answering him, Allura looked to Coran. “Ignis?” she asked.

“Ignis,” Coran agreed in a heavy sigh.

“What, like _ignite_?” Lance was starting to sound like himself again, loud and abrupt. “Am I gonna catch on fire?”

Something about that had Coran tickled. He snickered and had to muffle it behind his hand. Even Allura was fighting an uncomfortable smile as she stepped toward the machine.

“Not literally,” she allowed. “The red ignis’ sting does inflict an extreme amount of pain, if the victim isn’t in contact with their antidote.”

That took a moment to process. Keith’s frown deepened, and his lips bobbed like a fish until he found a single word.

“What?”

Coran cleared his throat, done laughing at Lance’s pain (which had only made Lance’s shoulders curl up tighter in humiliation, which in turn made Keith _furious_ ). He gestured toward the exam chair to invite Lance closer, and Keith held tightly to his hand when he walked forward with him. He stubbornly remained _in contact_ with him, turning himself around so Lance could take a seat with Keith standing at his side.

“In this case,” Coran explained, “you, Keith, are Lance’s antidote. When a person is stung, they form a connection to another person. The, ah…” Keith didn’t miss the glance Coran sent to Allura, or the distressed flattening of her mouth in response. “…person closest to them at the time. The effects last for a movement or two, but as long as you two are touching, Lance will be fine until it wears off. It will hurt more the farther apart the two of you are, or the longer it’s been since he’s had contact, and this could potentially cause a lot of stress to his body, so it’s best for you to stick together.”

Keith took all of this in and answered with a serious nod. Lance was in pain, and by a freakish stroke of fate, Keith was able to soothe that pain. No matter how awkward that morning had been between the two of them, Lance was his responsibility.

Lance had protected him, like the brave idiot he was. That had been Keith’s fault. There was no way he was letting Lance suffer for that.

“Understood,” he said.

“Wait, wait,” Lance choked, and the room finally looked at him again. He seemed very small when his eyes were that wide, showing fear he rarely confessed to. He was looking back and forth between Keith and Coran, and his hand was loosening around Keith’s, threatening to pull away. “Keith, you don’t have to. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Keith hadn’t thought his voice was too firm, but it only appeared to upset Lance more. “You were— In Red, you were— No. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“But you said—” Lance cut himself off, and the distress was turning his face bright red. His eyes turned down again, and Keith felt every eye in the room staring at them in confusion.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Lance muttered. “Never mind.”

At the other side of the chair, Allura let out a sympathetic sigh. “Lance, it’s quite alright. A love bug sting may be an opportunity for you two to bond as teammates.”

“It’s called a _love bug_?” Lance probably hadn’t meant to shout, either, but he seemed to be reaching a critical mass of embarrassment. And alright, _love bug_ sounded way too snuggly for something that made Lance weep with agony, but they could work through this.

“Lance, it’s fine.” Keith squeezed his hand, and he set his other hand along the side of Lance’s neck, which was just as warm and distractingly soft as his cheek had been. The effect was strangely immediate, and he watched Lance’s eyes go glassy and his pupils stretch a little wider while his shoulders slackened. “Doesn’t matter what it’s called. You got hurt, so I’m gonna help you.”

Lance grumbled in his throat with dissatisfaction, but he didn’t look ready to pull away, either.

Just another week or two. Keith bit the inside of his cheek, braced himself, and pulled his gaze away from Lance’s exhausted face.

“I want him scanned for anything else he might’ve been exposed to,” he told Coran. “Any microbes or other toxins that might’ve hit him when he lost his helmet. He also took a pretty bad hit to the upper chest, so check for fractures or internal bleeding.”

“You’re fussy,” Lance mumbled, but Keith found that he could quiet him down again with a single stroke of his thumb along Lance’s neck. While Coran finished prepping the diagnostic machine, Keith looked back at the other members of their crew, all staring with expressions somewhere on the spectrum of ‘confused.’

“Pidge,” Keith ordered. “Contact the Olkari. Confirm with them that we activated the beacon. Allura and Shiro, get us out of this rock’s orbit and plot our course to Yzramil. And Hunk?”

Hunk stood up straight, eyebrows lifting.

“What’s Lance’s favorite food?” Keith asked.

Hunk grinned and rocked back on his heels. “I got you, man. The usual, Lance?” Lance nodded, even though his bottom lip was twisted into a pout.

Everyone moved on their assigned tasks, and Keith stayed with Lance for the brief scanning process. Lance wasn’t necessarily a bad patient, but he did fidget and refuse to make eye contact with Keith.

“Are you sure I can’t just get in a pod, and, I dunno. Fix it?” Lance asked Coran, pleading.

“Negative.” Coran didn’t so much as look up from the screen on the side of the machine, which was still washing Lance in a thin blue light. “See— The scanner’s picked up the venom in your system, but it’s not truly an injury or infection that the pod could heal. All a healing pod would do would be to put you to sleep for a while, at least until you wake up in pain again. It’s better to let it run its course.”

Lance obviously didn’t want Keith touching him. The sulking look on his face communicated that much, and Keith worried the skin of his lip while he held onto his hand. As soon as the scans were completed and Lance was cleared, only some bruising to his ribs to speak of, Keith walked with him out of the clinic.

He wasn’t sure where they were headed, but he felt it best to let Lance pick the direction. If Lance had an idea of where he would be more comfortable, that was where Keith wanted to go. After a minute of silence and some awkward navigation away from the infirmary and towards the residential wing, Keith cleared his throat.

“So… I know this isn’t really ideal.”

Lance huffed. It wasn’t even a laugh.

“And I know I’m the last person you’d wanna be stuck with like this,” Keith continued. Lance still wasn’t looking at him, and that only gave Keith the sense that he was digging himself further into a hole. He pressed on anyway. “But you shouldn’t have to hurt just because you took a hit for me. So whatever you need, I’m here.”

Lance took a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a long, obnoxious sigh. He finally tilted his head to look at Keith, and his wide smile didn’t quite touch his eyes.

“It’s fine,” Lance said. “It’s totally fine. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. It’s more like… Now that I know what it is, I can handle it. You know? It was mostly the not knowing.”

That… didn’t sound right. Keith frowned, but he didn’t cling to Lance when he gently pulled his hand away.

“Are you sure?” Keith asked.

“Yeah, man, it’s cool.” Lance’s smile tightened, and he put his hands on his hips to make them seem like they fit somewhere. He stepped backward, walking the other way down the fork in the hall, still facing Keith. “I’m just gonna go get cleaned up. See ya.”

Keith had already known Lance was weird, but he had never thought of him as socially awkward. He stared after Lance, blinking, even after Lance had turned around to trot away and disappear around the next corner.

If Lance didn’t want his help, there was nothing for it. Keith scuffed his shoe on the floor, made a slow turn on his heel, and made his way to the bridge to put himself to use.

 

Allura and Shiro were at the control panel, and when Keith stepped into the bridge, he heard the murmurs about the slight adjustments needed to carry the castle to their next destination. Coran was further ahead, turning through a database and sighing over the history of the planet Yzramil.

“And the _fabrics_ ,” Coran went on wistfully. “The stitches are so small you can’t feel them. They’re impossible to unweave, yet so breathable and--” He cut himself short as soon as he looked over his shoulder to see who had opened the doors. “Keith?”

Allura snapped to attention. She turned around and stared at Keith with far more horror than Keith personally thought he deserved. He glanced down at himself to check that his armor wasn’t missing, and he scrubbed at a spot on his cheek he thought might be dirty.

“What?” he asked. At least Shiro looked confused, too.

“Where is Lance?” Allura’s brows furrowed low, and Keith remembered a little too vividly the fluorescent lighting in the principal’s office. How could he have done something wrong when he didn’t even understand the rules?

“I think he went to take a shower?” Keith frowned and searched for pockets to hide his hands in. He longed for the pair of gloves in his room. “He said he was fine. It doesn’t look like he wants me crowding him.”

Allura’s face twisted into something frustrated and uncomfortable, and Coran made fussing gestures with his hands and shook his head.

“Keith,” Coran tried as delicately and tactfully as he could. “Son. I know you both want your personal space. But Lance needs you. You need to go and find him _right now_. Being halfway across the castle from you-- It won’t be pretty.”

Keith was bolting back through the doors before Coran finished that sentence.


	2. Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw content. It's uh, most of the chapter, but if you wanna skip the more graphic stuff, I advise you to jump from around, "Lance didn't shiver that time," to "Better?" I hope the context fills in enough

Lance had made a bad call. He did that pretty frequently, if he was being honest. But most of his bad calls didn't leave him immobile on the floor.

It had set in as soon as he had lost contact with Keith. The exact moment he had pulled his hand out of Keith's and their brushing fingers had been separated by any length of space, the pain had come back in warning sparks along Lance’s spine. It was like it was angry at him.

By the time Lance had turned the corner and lost sight of Keith, he was fairly sure that actual damage was being done to his body. Coran had said the venom wouldn't cause any real injury, but all he could envision was every muscle in his body collapsing on itself. And he did collapse on himself, right in the hallway. He had been headed for his room, but he was nowhere close. Well, that was embarrassing. He had thought his pain tolerance was better than this.

Lance didn’t get sick. There was only one time in his life that he could remember being stuck in bed from illness. He had been twelve with the flu, and his whole body had ached so badly that he hadn't had the strength to make it downstairs for dinner. His mom had brought up soup and crackers for him and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a cool cloth.

The flu was nothing like this. His whole body was breaking into sweats and shivers. Pain radiated from his chest, through each particular blood vessel, through arteries and capillaries, and stuck between the fibers that made up his body. This was destroying him. He was being dissolved.

His stomach heaved. There was nothing to throw up. His vision went spotty, and thick streams of tears dripped from his cheeks anyway. His neck hurt. His fucking fingernails hurt. At some point, it became a useless exercise to try and count the symptoms. They couldn’t be contained or organized, and Lance was being crushed under them. He tried to reassure himself with the hope that he would lose consciousness. Any minute now.

“Lance!”

Oh, shit, that was Keith's voice. Lance recognized it through the roaring in his ears, even when it sounded so unusually worried around his name. He saw a blur in the corner of his vision, but he was still having trouble focusing his eyes on anything. He was fairly sure that Keith had dropped to his knees beside him.

“Hey, man,” Lance heard himself rasping out. “Just stubbed my toe. You know how it is.”

“Oh my god, Lance, shut up.” Then there were hands on him. Rough, strong hands, fluttering anxiously over Lance’s hands and then electing to cradle his face with a more determined pressure. Warm thumbs wiped away the tears.

A rush of good.

Good, good, Keith was _good_. Lance whimpered high in his throat and curled his hand around Keith's wrist. The pain sank away, and Lance was left with butterflies in his stomach. How long had he wanted to feel Keith hold his face like this?

“Lance, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have left you alone, I'm sorry.” Keith moved one hand down Lance’s body. He felt his arm curl around his waist, and then Keith was pulling Lance up into his lap.

The butterflies were running down his limbs. Lance was pliant and stunned and nearly giddy, and Keith was solid and trustworthy. He was so warm.

Keith was shaking.

Lance lifted his head from Keith's shoulder, hardly having noticed when he had tucked it there, and met his eyes.

Keith stared back at him, eyes round and cheeks red.

“Keith?” Lance whispered.

The deranged, adrenaline-soaked part of his nerves noted the exact curve and bow of Keith’s mouth.

The sane sliver of his brain echoed three words from that morning.

Lance started to pull back, sliding himself off of Keith's thighs like he was rejecting a gift. Keith gripped back of his neck tighter and locked his hand into Lance’s.

“I'm not leaving you alone again.” Keith's tone was too firm and gentle. It was Lance’s turn for his face to flush, and his adam’s apple bobbed.

He forced out a laugh.

“Watch what you say. You’ll give a man ideas.”

Keith scowled, but he didn't let go.

“I'm serious. This is hurting you. I won't touch you if you tell me not to, but I'm staying right next to you for when you need me.”

That wouldn’t last long. Lance gave Keith what he hoped looked like a dry, exasperated stare.

“Well, I’m headed to the showers.” That would drive his point home.

“Okay,” Keith said, and Lance’s heart tumbled down the staircase of his ribs.

“Wait, what? Keith,” Lance stammered. “It’s-- You don’t want to--”

Keith’s face flushed, and he started to retreat in that weird, self-conscious way of his, like he had only realized that he had crossed a line when it was too late.

“How can it be that weird?” Keith’s embarrassment made him defensive. “It’s not the first time we’ve seen each other--”

“Swimsuits don’t count!”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Keith snapped. “I'll close my eyes. But I'm not leaving you alone.”

Keith was too earnest. His eyes were too sweet and stubborn and worried, and Lance was entirely unfamiliar with having that aspect of Keith’s attention. He cleared his throat, looked down at his knees, and adjusted his fingers against Keith’s, needing to shift against his skin to find some stability.

“We can take a shower,” he mumbled. “It's like gym class.”

Keith hesitated, squeezed Lance's hand, and nodded in his peripheral.

“Okay.” Keith’s voice was too gentle. “Okay. One step at a time. Tell me if anything’s too much.”

“ _This_ is too much,” Lance bit out. Keith’s tense silence made him immediately regret it. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Not you. Just… all of this.”

Keith nodded again, and he didn't seem to know what else to say. He waited until Lance was ready to stand up, and he acquiesced easily when Lance tested his limits and curled his hand around Keith's arm. Neither of them said anything on their way to the showers.

Lance couldn't begin to admit how badly it hurt. Even clinging to Keith's arm (and never mind how Lance had never before had the privilege of resting his palms over Keith's goddamn bicep like this), the pain only faded away to a mild discomfort. He still felt nauseated, but maybe it was just the fear of the rest of the pain coming back. Once they were alone in the bathroom, they stopped by the closed door, looked at each other nervously, and had to find other things to stare at.

“So…” Lance cleared his throat. This really wasn't measuring up to his fantasies.

“Like gym class,” Keith reminded him. “Do you wanna… take turns?”

“Take turns?”

“Un...undressing.” Keith was fascinated with the tiles on the wall, and Lance could have probably fried an egg on his burning cheek. “So one of us can keep. Um. Touching the other.”

Since when did taking a shower demand so much strategy? Lance’s chest felt tight, but he slowly, cautiously unwound his hands from Keith's arm. Keith’s eyes snapped up and fixed on Lance’s face, but Lance took a deep breath and worked against the ache already settling back in.

“I can handle it for a little bit,” he chuckled. “We don't have to maintain _constant_ contact.”

Keith searched his face for lies. He frowned to add a stern weight to his words.

“When you need to,” Keith ordered, “touch me.”

Jesus H. Christ on a pancake, Lance was lucky that Keith turned away from him when he did, because he was sure the look on his face was anything but flattering. It only worsened when Keith pulled his armor off and reached behind his shoulders to unzip his flight suit. Lance almost asked if he needed help. Keith was only halfway out of the black suit, pulling his arms out of the sleeves and slipping it down to his waist, when he caught Lance still staring.

“You don't have to look,” Keith mumbled, looking far more self-conscious than irritated. He took a deep breath, reached out with one hand, and took Lance’s hand while he looked back down and stepped out of the rest of his clothes.

This was the worst thing to ever happen to him. Ever. Lance was going to go deaf from his own heartbeat, and he turned his head as far as he could to avoid looking at Keith. While he was grateful for the contact, it was awkward to try and unclasp his armor with only one hand.

“Do you need help?” Keith’s small voice offered, and okay, _that_ was the worst thing to ever happen to Lance.

“Um.” No. Just say it, Lance. Don't make Keith do this. “If you want to.” God _damn_ it, Lance. Keith went still, and then he moved forward to unbuckle Lance’s belt. “Wait, wait, on second thought, I got this.”

Just like gym class. Keith was standing right in front of him, completely naked, looking up at him with this vulnerable confusion Lance didn't know how to take responsibility for, and it was just the two of them while Lance needed to be touched and Keith felt _obligated_ to touch him, and Lance couldn't get the idea of touching him so much more under the shower until Keith _relaxed_ out of his head, but sure, it was just like gym class.

Lance couldn’t handle the intimacy of facing Keith while he undressed, so he turned around. He unclasped his belt and removed the rest of the plates of his armor, down to his leg guards, and Keith kept a hand lightly on his shoulder. The contact seemed to make it through the material of his suit, but it was dulled and hardly comforting. It left Lance full of the desire to feel Keith’s skin when it was _so close_ , and it was almost worse than no contact at all. He kept himself busy with setting aside his armor, and then he was left with his suit.

He started to reach back behind his neck to unzip the flight suit, and his hand bumped into Keith’s fingers that were already resting on his shoulder. It was arguably weirder to unzip it himself when Keith was _right there_ , so with a few mumbled ums, can Is, and sures, Lance found himself holding his breath while Keith dragged the fastening lower along his spine.

He felt the material part over his skin. Every inch of him that he revealed to Keith felt hotter from the exposure, and Lance stared at the tile floor and bit at his bottom lip. Keith brought up another gentle hand to brush aside the flight suit on his shoulders, but this also had the unfortunate effect of sliding his fingertips across Lance’s back. He got the feeling that this would have chased goosebumps over his body even without the rush of comfort and wellbeing that came with his… cure, or whatever Allura had called it. But it felt _good_. Keith’s hands on him felt so good, and Lance shivered and pulled in a sharp breath. Keith tensed behind him and his hands stopped, and Lance struggled against the completely inappropriate direction his body thought this was going in.

“Do you want me to stop?” Keith asked. His voice was clear and careful, and it allowed Lance to drop all of his trust into Keith’s hands.

“No,” he admitted quietly. “It feels nice.” He swallowed, closed his eyes, and pushed at the awkward silence hanging over them. “You okay?”

“I’m…” Keith’s voice sounded weird. Unsteady. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Lance looked back at Keith over his shoulder, and he caught a flash of panic in Keith’s eyes before he smothered it under a scowl. “Do _you_ want to stop?”

“No.” Keith sucked his teeth, measured himself with a deep breath, and shook his head. “No, I’m okay.”

Obviously, Keith wasn’t very touchy. Maybe he was with Shiro, but whenever anyone else touched him, it just seemed to scare him or piss him off. Meanwhile, Lance just wanted too badly for Keith to touch him. This time, though, Keith seemed willing - like he was stretching a muscle to test it instead of pulling it. As anxious as Lance was, he gathered up an encouraging smile.

“Just like gym class,” he reminded him.

“I don’t think public schools do the group showers anymore, Lance.”

“Old school, then.” Lance might have just felt emboldened by the relief of contact, or inspired to be calmer to counteract Keith’s anxiety, but this was getting easier. He wasn’t exactly self-conscious about his body. He didn’t mind Keith seeing him - like, _really_ didn’t mind - as long as Keith wasn’t pushing himself too hard to be there. The smile felt more relaxed on his face.

Keith was doing his best. Keith was there for him, so Lance could be there for Keith, too.

“You’re doing good. At this… antidote thing.”

Keith finally met his eyes. His were wide and deep blue, close to grey, close to violet, and they were hopeful. He must have thought that Lance was encouraging him to go further, because he let both of his hands rest against Lance’s exposed back.

Shit.

Lance’s eyes fluttered before he could stop himself from shivering again. Keith’s hands were so warm. He was awkward and gentle and so endearing, and he was trying to take care of him. Lance should have felt more ashamed than he did for being so enamored with him.

“Does it feel…?” Keith was tentative about the question, but he had to check.

What was Lance even supposed to say? He couldn’t just deny it and lie to him. Keith was too smart for that. But would Keith feel weirder if Lance was honest?

“We should get in the shower,” Lance mumbled.

Keith cleared his throat, and Lance could sense him nodding. “Sure. Yeah.”

Lance never thought about the motions of taking his clothes off. It wasn’t complicated, but when it was in front of Keith, it became such a process. Lance kept his eyes on the tile floor, took a deep breath, and focused on not pulling away from Keith’s gentle palms when he pushed his suit lower on his hips. He also tried not to lean back into Keith when he bent to step out of it.

“God, this is so awkward,” Lance laughed. He had to try and dispel some of it by pointing it out. Keith took an audible breath behind him.

“It’s just skin,” Keith reminded him.

That was rational, and it did make it sound better. Was this Keith trying to be reassuring?

“Yeah, but it’s _my_ skin.” And Keith’s.

“Yes,” Keith answered carefully. His hands moved higher on Lance’s back when neither of them seemed to have realized them slipping lower. “But there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Thanks. I worked really hard on it.” At least Keith took the joke with a soft snort. Lance straightened up and turned back around to face him, and Keith stared up at him with those nighttime eyes, only adjusting his hands to rest over Lance’s arms.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Lance asked. “Every day? For like, two weeks?”

To Keith’s credit, he kept his eyes on Lance’s face. Lance should have expected the dumb, stunned stare he gave him, though.

“Um,” Keith answered. As eloquent as ever. He shut his jaw and found some real words. “ Yeah. No problem.”

Lance snorted, and when he turned to find the dial to turn on the shower, Keith followed him with a hand looped around his arm.

The water was warm the moment it started; no cold blast or adjustment period. Lance loved Altean showers. He tipped his head back to let it wash over his face and soak into his hair, and whether he had an audience or not, by god, he was going to enjoy being clean.

“Don’t wait up,” he mumbled, smiling and taking back his arm. He found his cleanser in the shower rack, and he bore the dull ache setting in from lack of contact while he washed his face. He was fairly sure he heard Keith whisper, “okay,” and he didn’t feel Keith touching him for a while. He moved onto his exfoliant, because if anything made him want to scrub his skin off it was the hot, muggy air of Halkeryn. Once he rinsed that off, he snuck a single glance at Keith.

Keith had his face turned bashfully away from Lance while he washed his chest, but this left his back and the slope of his neck and shoulder all too open for admiration-- which _wasn’t_ what Lance was paying him at that moment. That would be weird. It was just one little glance. It was just skin. Keith’s skin. Infuriatingly smooth without all the effort Lance put into his own. Smooth skin, stretched over tight muscles, an athletic build on a slender frame, down from his shoulder blades to the definition of his back, to his slim waist and the lovely angle of his hip bones, and holy _fuck_ , an ass so edible Lance was already drooling. Not that Keith’s blissfully snug pants left much to the imagination, but _christ_.

He had only been glancing for a couple of seconds, but Keith must have sensed it, because he looked back over his shoulder. His wide, nervous eyes met Lance’s and stopped his heart.

“Sorry.” Lance turned around immediately. He couldn’t be sure if the pain in his stomach was the venom or the shame, but it had him running his mouth and spilling damage control all over the floor. “It’s normal in, um, gym showers. Sometimes your friend just has a really great butt, and you just, you know, notice.”

“I _what_?” Keith sounded breathless enough to be ill, but there was a stunned laugh in there somewhere.

“Did I stutter?” Lance bit out, weaker than he’d hoped. The venom was definitely setting back in, but there was no way he was asking for Keith to touch him right then.

“A little, yeah.”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” Lance grumbled. “You _know_.”

Keith was silent just long enough to make Lance nervous. Then his fingers and palm brushed over Lance’s bicep, upward to rest on his shoulder. Prickles of electricity followed the touch.

“I really don’t,” Keith laughed quietly. “But… um, thanks? You do, too.”

Lance’s heart would have to slow down at some point, but it was not happening anytime soon.

“I what?” he choked.

“You know,” Keith replied, far too satisfied with himself.

“ _Keith_.”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” Keith chided him. “You should finish up before you start staring again.”

Lance almost forgot to wash his hair. Keith finished up much more quickly and efficiently than Lance did, and he stumbled through the rest of his routine just to get it done. While he was soaping up and scrubbing down, Keith had plenty of free time to keep touching him. He kept his hand just below Lance’s shoulder, and when Lance reached to wash his back, Keith slid his hand to one side and then came back to wipe the suds away.

Lance didn't shiver that time. He moaned.

His hand shot up to clamp over his mouth so quickly that he dropped his sponge, but it was too late. Keith's hand froze, and then the other came up to hold Lance’s side.

“You okay?” Keith asked, harmless and worried.

Lance was way better than okay. That was the problem. Keith's hands were warm, and each motion was such a careful, gentle caress that his nerves locked all of their attention onto his touch. His hands were far too close to his spine, to his heart, to everything vital and vulnerable.

“Yeah. Um.” Lance bit his lip hard enough to sting, and he leaned his forehead and palms against the wall in front of him to try and find some balance.

“What's wrong?” That was Keith’s abject concern. He rubbed his hand up and down Lance’s spine. It knocked the breath out of him, and he suddenly felt feverish.

“Oh, _fuck_ , don't do that,” Lance breathed out in a rush. This was bad. His heart was pounding, and his hips-- Jesus. “Um, I think the venom’s making me more… sensitive, I guess.”

Lance had always been receptive to touch. He was happy to hug and cuddle and just be close to people, but it had never affected him quite at this level with something so easy as a backrub. And the longer Keith touched him, the happier the poison in his system was.

When his meaning hit Keith, his hands tensed and jerked away. He decided to lay one hand on Lance’s bicep instead.

“I’m sorry.” Bless him, Keith sounded so stressed. “Lance, how do you want me to touch you?”

Watch your fucking mouth, Kogane.

“That's fine. Just like that.” Lance knew he was shaking. He knew he couldn't turn around and face Keith like this. “I'm just gonna… stand here for a minute.”

Keith took that in with a small, “Oh,” and Lance considered the option of suiting up, jumping out the airlock, and finding some nice, quiet planet on which to bury himself.

“Yeah,” he grumbled.

Keith's hand was shaking.

“Do you need to…?” Keith dared to ask.

“Nope. Definitely not.” Lance’s voice cracked, and he let his head thud against the wall. That was all he needed: the thought of Keith watching him do that.

Keith sucked in a breath behind him.

“Are you sure? I don’t know if you… If it’s two weeks… I get it. I don’t mind.”

A breath of silence. Lance could only plead with himself not to be considering this.

Keith was offering. Keith seemed more preemptively nervous than uncomfortable. Maybe this was okay. The twisting, hungry, primal part of Lance’s brain hoped that it was. Maybe there was a chance that Keith even wanted it to happen.

“Are _you_ sure?” Lance asked.

“I told you, I don’t mind.” Keith still sounded nervous, but there was something determined in there. “Don’t let me get in your way.”

“You’re not in my way,” Lance scoffed. “Just… Don’t push yourself for my convenience, you know? I mean, this morning, you didn’t want me touching you, and now you’re stuck with me, and that just… has to suck for you.”

“And it doesn’t suck for _you_?”

It did. While Lance was stewing in the guilt of becoming a responsibility for Keith, the physical affection he really wanted was dropped into his lap without any of the intent or meaning.

And it didn’t. Because wrongly, selfishly, Keith was in the shower with him. Selfishly, standing between Keith’s body and a cold tile wall was really working for him. And Keith didn't seem to resent it.

“You’re not a touchy person,” Lance answered weakly.

“No. But you are. And I want to take care of you.”

For the moment, Lance was too stunned by those words’ many different meanings to argue that Keith shouldn’t _have_ to take care of him.

“What do you want, Lance?” He hadn’t ever heard Keith’s voice that soft.

There was no way he could wait this problem out.

Lance pulled in a deep, shaky breath and let it back out in a sigh, and he took one hand off of the wall to touch his own throat. His palm dragged down his chest to warm the skin with his own body heat.

Maybe he could have waited it out, or changed the subject for long enough, or set the water to freezing. But Keith was offering, and Lance wanted to see how it would pan out.

“If you wanna stop, you tell me,” Lance said. “I mean it. I’ll stop.”

“Okay,” Keith whispered over the shower. His hand held tight to Lance’s arm, and he hadn’t seemed to notice when his grip had tightened.

“Are you nervous?” Lance asked. He should have tried harder to keep the small, teasing smile out of his tone.

Keith didn’t answer that. He waited and held onto him, and Lance took another deep breath and kept his eyes on the tile. His hand continued lower, stroking his stomach and then curling his fingers below his hips to grip himself at the base. When Lance sighed lower than before, Keith found his voice again.

“Just like gym class, right?”

Lance barked with laughter, and he even heard a small, hopeful laugh behind him. It cut through some of the awkwardness and gave this a chance to be fun. He stroked the full length of himself and leaned his forehead into the wall, breathing slow and deep.

“Yeah, you guys didn’t do this stuff? Pretty sure this is all they do at frat parties.”

“This isn’t a frat party, Lance.” Was Lance delusional with wishful thinking, or did Keith sound just a little fond? “Do you want me to touch you more?”

Lance’s hips jerked forward. Where had Keith found the gall to ask that? When had ‘don’t touch me’ become ‘can I touch you?’

“If you want,” he breathed.

Slowly, steadily, Keith’s hand moved down Lance’s shoulder. Only a few pumps of Lance’s hand later, Keith had both of his palms resting over Lance’s lower back. His thumbs stroked the dip of his spine and studied the curve of it.

His nerves bloomed. His head went light. Lance’s toes curled, and his fingers curled tighter around himself. He panted against the wall.

“Is this okay?” Keith asked, quiet and careful. Lance nodded quickly.

“Feels good,” he whispered, because Keith deserved that praise. The warmth of Keith’s hands was flowing through his limbs and making his knees shake. “Feels really good.” He admitted a raw laugh and added, “Makes more sense now, why they call it a love bug.”

“Lance,” Keith groaned. Lance knew he was exasperated, but just the simple act of Keith saying his _name_ had him whimpering. And Keith couldn’t have been too annoyed with him, judging by the way his fingers were kneading into his back. It sent flashes of white across Lance’s vision.

“Keith.” Lance didn’t have any spare shame to spend on the sound of his own voice. He was breathless and needy, openly begging, but his skin was buzzing with an overload of sensation that he loved and craved. He wanted to be washed away in it. “Keith, your hands feel so good, _please_.”

“Please what?”

Keith gripped Lance by the hip. Lance stopped breathing.

“Touch me.” Lance sounded hoarse to his own ears. “Please. Keep touching me.”

Keith hummed behind him, and when his hand traveled from his hip to the front of Lance’s body, across his waist and stomach, Lance’s heart tried to stop.

“You’re really polite like this,” Keith noted, low and amused.

“Keith, I swear, if you’re talking dirty to me,” Lance growled.

“I’m just talking.” Keith was far too steady. Curious, a little apprehensive, but steady. He even sounded like he was having fun, and Lance couldn’t process how. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but his scattered thoughts couldn’t grasp how Keith found touching him so easy. “Do you like this?”

Lance trembled when Keith stroked his stomach just a little lower.

“I like it.” Lance’s mouth was dry. He hoped Keith wouldn’t hear him over the soft tapping of the shower. “Do _you_ like…? You’re okay with touching me?”

“It’s okay,” Keith agreed gently. “Don’t worry about me. I promise I’m okay.” Keith’s fingers skimmed upward, and he followed the center of Lance’s ribcage up to his chest.

Lance took a risk. He took his hand off of himself, and he braced both of his forearms on the wall.

“Do you want to?” Lance whispered.

He felt Keith moving closer to him, slow and cautious as ever. He felt his chest press to his back, only his hand remaining on Lance’s lower back to keep their hips separated. His other hand slipped down Lance’s front, lower than before.

“Holy shit.” Keith barely mouthed those words, but Lance could hear them behind his ear. His fingers were only brushing over the hair between his hips, and he was hesitating. “You sure?”

“God, yes, please just--” Lance shut himself up, buried his face in his forearms against the wall, and muffled an embarrassed, embarrassing whine there.

And then Keith’s hand was on him.

Lance had never made a sound this broken and ragged and _fucked_ in front of another person before.

He had no choice but to bite down on his hand.

“Holy _shit_.” At least Keith sounded half as breathless as Lance felt. The very worst parts of Lance were thriving on that tone of his. He loved being exposed to Keith. He loved being served up for his judgment. He needed Keith to like what he saw and felt and heard, and that need was ready to tear him apart.

Keith touched him slowly. He took a moment just to get used to the weight of Lance in his hand, and Lance found himself praying for Keith to be impressed. He didn’t like how one-sided this was, though, and he followed the impulse to reach behind himself and run the back of his fingers across Keith’s hip in a silent offer. Keith’s hand jumped from the small of Lance’s back to grip his wrist instead, and he pushed Lance’s hand against the wall where he decided it belonged.

“No,” Keith mumbled. “Just you.”

Lance nodded and choked out a, “Sorry,” but he knew that Keith could probably feel him pulsing harder in his grip. Keith restraining any part of him was just one more checkmark on a long list of things Keith was doing _right_. He tried to let that smother the small sting of rejection and worry.

And then Keith whispered too close to Lance’s neck, “Relax.”

“ _Fuck_.” Lance grit his teeth and fought his body’s instincts to relax _closer_ to him. Where did Keith get off on talking to him like this? As Keith started to stroke him more fully and deeply, Lance had to bear the sensation and the knowledge that _Keith_ was touching him. This was Keith’s warm, rough, gentle hand where he never would have imagined he would want to touch him. A mortifying thought struck him, and Lance let out a strangled laugh.

“What?” Keith’s hand moved even slower, unsure, but his tone was patient. Lance posed the question wryly.

“Is it the venom that feels this good, or is it just you?”

Keith really, _really_ didn't have to whisper a laugh behind Lance’s ear like that. He didn't have to squeeze Lance tighter and trace a finger against the very tip of him. Lance thought he might crumble against the wall.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Keith crooned, and his hand pulled downward so slow and tight that Lance could fully imagine sinking into someone. He groaned, and his spine tried to arch to move into the touch or to press his hips backward. He didn't really mean to. Keith responded, though, and took his hand off Lance’s wrist on the wall to steady him over his tailbone. “Shhh. Hold still. I've got you.”

Lance was a thread away from begging Keith to fuck him. Would he, if he asked? He was leaning heavily into the wall, head between his forearms. He was breathing in small, moaning gasps when Keith tightened his hand and fucked Lance’s cock into it, finally going as hard and fast as he needed.

“Come on, Lance,” he whispered into his hair, and Lance didn't need any more encouragement than that.

He didn't say Keith's name. He only yelped, inarticulate and overwhelmed, and thrust his hips forward into Keith's touch. Keith was a warm, comforting body behind him, and he tried to dig his nails into the cold, hard wall in front of him. Keith pulled the coiling heat through his body until it burst.

When Lance came over the wall and Keith's fingers, he was barely aware of Keith catching his breath and tensing behind him.

And then Lance was standing still, breathing hard and internalizing the fact what Keith had just done for him.

Keith lifted his hand off of him gingerly, still touching his back. Lance felt him shaking.

“Better?” Keith asked.

Lance replied with a tired moan that sounded like approval. He swallowed roughly and tilted his cheek against the wall.

“You okay?” Lance mumbled.

“Yeah.” He would have believed Keith if he hadn't said it twice over. He turned, and Keith adjusted his hand on him a little higher when Lance shifted to face him and lean back against the wall.

Keith’s face was flushed. His eyes were wide, and locks of his thick, damp hair hung close to his face. He was holding his other hand out at his side, palm up, like he wasn’t sure what to do with the substance Lance had left on his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said meekly. If Keith had that tense look on his face, Lance had to apologize. Keith seemed to regain his composure, and he looked away from Lance’s face to rinse his hand under the shower.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Are _you_ okay?”

“Way better than okay.” Mostly. Nothing could have shut off Lance’s afterglow faster than the shame trying to drag him through the floor. He would have wanted to hold and kiss Keith after something like this, but that clearly wasn't a reciprocated thought. “Keith, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. I just don’t usually do that.”

“Keith, come on.” Lance hated how pleading he sounded. He reached out and touched Keith’s arm, barely resting his fingers across his elbow. Keith didn’t flinch away, at least. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to. Even if you think I want it. Please, don’t push yourself like that. I mean, you never touch me at all.”

“I told you, I didn’t mind.” Keith gave in and met his eyes again. “We both said it was okay. You meant that, right?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, voice falling. Keith had no idea. The stupid, naive lump in Lance's throat had meant it far too much.

“Well, so did I," Keith told him. "It was fine. And if you need to do it again, I don’t mind.”

“I…” Again. Wow. A second time. Lance regarded him carefully, and Keith didn't even blink. He had stopped shaking, but Lance couldn't imagine asking for this again, not with a reaction as flat and measured as this.

The pause got through to Keith. The armor in his eyes faltered, and worry showed through.

“ _Are_ you okay?” Keith asked very quietly. “Was it… okay?”

Lance didn't know how else to respond to that but to kiss him, so he stayed right where he was.

“Way better than frat class. I mean, gym party. Fuck, um…”

Too late. Keith was laughing, and Lance relaxed and smiled.

“So, we’re okay?” Lance asked. “Because I don't know if I'm gonna be able to be stuck to you if this is gonna make it weird.”

“No, we’re okay.” Keith's smile went all the way up to his eyes. They were okay. Keith cleared his throat abruptly and turned, looking for the shower dial and turning it off. “So… we should get out.”

“Yeah.” Lance blinked to shake himself back into reality, and he followed Keith to the towels set aside. He kept his eyes politely averted while they dried off, and he kept up the little jokes and harmless conversation. He had to keep their minds off of anything more specific, and he had to make sure Keith didn't start hating him again.


End file.
